


what happened to the soul you used to be?

by biochemprincess



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4758782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(There is a cold inside her bones - freezing aching bitter - it's unkind and ruthless, nature reclaiming her body and she's fighting it. She is fighting so hard, but the cold lurks inside her and it waits.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	what happened to the soul you used to be?

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written in about 40 minutes, is unbeta-ed and I don't even know what this even is to be honest. A strange plot bunny I think. Heads up - Jemma isn't in the best mental space in this one, though it's nothing explicit. But maybe if that's not your cup of tea you should probably skip it.

It's been 9 days - and she can see the irony when it's handed to her on a silver platter, and maybe she's the only one who thinks it is funny, though she can't really tell since she is the only one who even knows in the first place - but the walls of the quarantine cell are too close to her liking and she just wants to get out.

The sleeves of her jumper are a little too long, always have been since she got it all those years ago, but it feels comforting. She drowning in soft fabric and it feels like home.

The base is cold these days, even if it's barely October. The days are cold and so is she.

There is a cold inside her bones - freezing aching bitter - it's unkind and ruthless, nature reclaiming her body and she's fighting it. She is fighting so hard, but the cold lurks inside her and it waits.

Jemma wants out of this room, wants to go away, wants the world to let her go, wants back into the stone, wants to leave. She wants too much, the strings on her shoulders pulling her somewhere away, but she can't let go and she can't just leave and she just can't ---

A broken scream, violent and not human, is stuck in her throat. Nothingness around her and nothingness inside her, except for the hollow beating of her shattered heart and the soft, small sounds of air leaving her lungs.

It doesn't hurt, not like gun shot wounds and scrapped knees and scratches from grumpy cats hurt. It doesn't hurt like broken wrists and knife wounds and concussions hurt.

It hurts deep within, like eyes fluttering shut between waking and sleeping after too many all-nighters, neither one satisfying enough to give in to. It hurts like sticking your bare hands into the snow, the unique crystals so sharp like needles burning on warm skin. It hurts like leaving without being able to look back, while those you love scream your name, when your feet and the wind carry you so far away you'll never find your way back home and you know you're lost.

It hurts so much, there are no words to describe it anymore. Jemma could speak every language known to men and those unknown to them too and there wouldn't be enough sounds and syllables to drive her point home.

There's nobody she can tell, they wouldn't understand.

The team wants to help, she can see it in every little thing they do. In Fitz's hopeful smiles and ~~Skye's~~ Daisy's friendly eyes and in May's gentle words. She can feel it in Bobbi's laugh, laughing despite her own burning pain and the jokes Hunter tells her and how Coulson has this proud expression directed at her, when she doesn't even deserve it.

Because she can't tell them what happened to her in the stone, when she doesn't know herself, when she doesn't understand the turmoil inside her.

Her hands tremble, but nobody can see it in the dead of night. Nobody is with her anyway, she had told them to leave her, had told them she's alright.

It's only another lie, presented with a fake smile and soft eyes.

She's alone and it's good. Her fingers skip over her skin, fingernails dig into her skin - leaving marks and drawing a little bit of blood.

It hurts, but it's a different kind of hurt and it lets Jemma know she is real.

In the stone she had felt nothing, except the pain inside her. There had been nothing, except herself and all the emotions locked away.

She had built walls inside her, but she doesn't know on which side of the locks she stays - Is she the prisoner or the jailer?

Nothing ever comes for free and Jemma knows - knows knows knows, just like she wants something she cannot name - that she has a price to pay. The stone had released her on its own terms, without an explanation of any sorts.

Everything comes with a price.

The others watch her carefully during the day, taking shifts to keep her entertained, when the only thing she ever wants to do is sleep and cry. But she can't tell them, because they wouldn't understand.

Two days ago she had almost told May, but then she had chickend out. She'd been too afraid of her reaction, of the disappointment that might have crossed May's face. It's stupid - she knows - but the pain is frightening her.

She is used to pain, has learned to live with it everyday, but this is different and it's terrifying; alone in the dark of the quarantine cell and it feels like the Chitauri virus all over again.

Scary monster live in the shadows and they wait for her, whisper things she doesn't understand. But Jemma knows she is meant to hear and she is meant to understand. She doesn't want to and she never will. She wants her life back.

She closes her eyes and breathes, thinking about her life, the life before and counts. It helps, sometimes. Those happy memories, random and irrelevant, keep the cold at bay.

_one - her first microscope, three - fitz is assigned as her lab partner, seven - her parents bring home the tiny puppy she had begged for, thirteen - christmas at the academy, seventeen - making a sandwich for fitz and his face lighting up like the sun, twenty three - she is alive_

Jemma opens her eyes and the room looks, the way it always does. She wipes away the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the fabric of her sweater. In the dark she can't even see the stains.

Whatever has changed inside of her, it's too dark and cold, always so cold, to be good.

She's been out of the stone for 9 days, and it's the number that makes the difference.

It's better now, better than an hour ago, but it's not good. This is a fight she cannot win, not if she keeps it only to herself. She vows to tell them, to confine that something is wrong with her, that something has changed her.

Tomorrow.

She holds onto the good things, like an anchor, and the light warm feelings attached to it keep the cold at bay, keep it from breaking her carelessly glued soul again. Her eyes grow heavy with exhaustion and Jemma falls asleep with the promise to herself on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know what you think about it. :)


End file.
